


collateral damage

by Ryah_Ignis



Series: Season 12 Codas [21]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, The Author is Super Bitter, also i didn't watch the episode so, angst like whoa, i projected all of my feelings about eileen on to sam, whoops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-31 02:24:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10889721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryah_Ignis/pseuds/Ryah_Ignis
Summary: "He doesn’t realize that he’s crying until the words in the ASL dictionary blur so completely that it all looks like one big smudge.  His fingers scrabble on the pages, like she’s hiding in between the small print and the complicated diagrams he’s only just beginning to understand.Before he knows what he’s doing, he’s pulling pages out at random and crumpling them in his fists.  They flutter to the floor like snowflakes until they blanket a small circle around him.Sam finds himself imagining what she would look like with snowflakes in her hair and sinks to the ground.  Cross-legged, he sits among the snowdrifts and aches with every gasp for air.  When the very last page is clutched between his fingers, Sam finally looks down.Two signs.  Like, and love."





	collateral damage

**Author's Note:**

> Someone asked me for a fix-it. This is not that fix-it, but it is, I hope, a little fix-it for those of you that were hoping for...I don't know...a textual reaction from Sam?

Sam makes it all the way to his room before he falls apart.  _Falls apart_ isn’t the right phrase.  Shatters.  Explodes.  _Falls apart_ means no collateral damage, and there is certainly collateral damage to his grief.

He spots the ASL dictionary on his bedside table, remembers the light feeling in his chest as he stood in the checkout line with a key to her world in his hands.

And suddenly, his hands are on the book again and he’s shaking it out like he’s looking for answers, like the right word to explain the cavern in his chest isn’t English at all, but a quick, nimble gesture.

He doesn’t realize that he’s crying until the words on the page blur so completely that it all looks like one big smudge.  His fingers scrabble on the pages, like she’s hiding in between the small print and the complicated diagrams he’s only just beginning to understand.

Before he knows what he’s doing, he’s pulling pages out at random and crumpling them in his fists.  They flutter to the floor like snowflakes until they blanket a small circle around him.

Sam finds himself imagining what she would look like with snowflakes in her hair and sinks to the ground.  Cross-legged, he sits among the snowdrifts and aches with every gasp for air.  When the very last page is clutched between his fingers, Sam finally looks down.

Two signs.  Like, and love.

And suddenly he’s not in his room at all.  They’re sitting in the café in Smith Center and she’s reaching across the table, manipulating his fingers when he isn’t quite dexterous enough to get the signs right.

Sam stares at the page for a long moment before hurling it at the wall.  It’s nowhere near as satisfying as the thought it would be.

When he looks down at what was once his book, he notices tiny splotches of blood on the paper and then the tiny stinging papercuts on his palms.  They’re tinier versions of the wounds that killed her.

Sam buries his head in his hands and doesn’t care that it means streaking blood all over his face.

Whoever said that it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all must have never exchanged a little piece of their heart for someone else’s and had it ripped out.  It feels like someone is sifting through his guts with a scalpel, and Sam knows that sensation intimately well.

He’s been here before.  He’s stood in his bedroom with heat blistering his face, staring up with tears in his eyes because he already knew it was over.  He’s stood outside her house with his hands in his pockets, staring in with a weight in his chest because he knew it was better this way.

He hasn’t let himself hope like this in a long time.

That thought, more than any other, brings a fresh wave of tears to his eyes.  He can’t seem to contain them, and part of him thinks it’s because he doesn’t care anymore.

Apathy hurts more than any sort of pain Sam knows.

He shouldn’t have let her go.  He should have known that the Men of Letters protect their own.  The wave of regret is so strong that it nearly knocks him over.  Instead, he sits with his palms covering his eyes like he can shut out the world.

Sam carries guilt like Atlas carries the universe, so it’s strange that one more load placed on top of his already teetering stack still crushes him.

He’s on his hands and knees retching before the wave of nausea actually hits him.  He hasn’t been able to eat all day so all that comes out are a few ropey strings of bile.

She’s gone.

Ripped into shreds like some kind of prey, like it was somehow _right_ to hunt her down.  Sam thinks of what her final moments must have felt like—roots grabbing at her feet, branches slapping at her face.  He thinks about her desperation, about the letter, about the refuge she was seeking.

He was that refuge. 

He vomits again, but it’s just dry-heaving, just that awful bitter gasping that makes you feel as if someone is wringing your stomach out for every last bitter drop.

She’s dead.

There’s no more hope for someone who knows what his life is like in the passenger side.  No more hope for someone who keeps pace with him every step of the way.  No more hope, period.  Eileen Leahy will always be a maybe.  An almost.  An unfinished thread.

He shouldn’t have let himself hope in the first place.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys. 
> 
> I'm not feeling super positive right now, so sorry for the downer. I'll most likely be back next week because I'm so close to finishing this complete coda series, but I can't promise that it'll be after having watched the episode.


End file.
